Jelly Roll is clearing the air regarding a bit of internet controversy that arose following the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction ceremony a few weeks ago.
Whether you love him or hate him, it’s hard to avoid Jelly Roll these days.
The Antioch, Tennessee native has had an incredible rise to prominence over the past few years. From at least 2003 to 2020, Jelly was an independent rapper. And that’s not my cup of tea, but there were a few high marks that showed he had some real talent as a songwriter and artist and that was first truly put on display with his 2021 rock album Ballads of the Broken, which is also where I first started listening to him.
From that release, he began gravitating towards his southern roots and started popping up on country festival lineups and in conversations around the industry. His big break came with Whitsitt Chapel, his 2023 debut country record that featured the songs you probably first knew him for, such as “Need A Favor”, “Halfway To Hell”, and his redone version of “Save Me” featuring Lainey Wilson.
In just a few short years, Jelly went from an ex-convict rapper that few knew to a certified country music superstar with untold millions of people knowing every detail about him, an experience that we probably don’t give him enough credit for. Can you imagine going through that drastic of a lifestyle change?
There’s some people who, when they see a story like Jelly’s, will immediately believe he’s an industry plant, propped up by a Nashville machine designed to force-feed music into ears across the nation through any means necessary. And there’s no doubt that Jelly got a decent bump thanks to his labels and promotion companies, let’s not pretend that the commercials and media spots don’t help make you a household name, but that sells short what he’s been able to do. Jelly is still writing deep songs that center on things often left out of the mainstream, like mental health and sexual abuse, and that is why Jelly has connected with the huge fanbase he now has.
But facts sometimes cease to matter on the internet and Jelly Roll found himself in the middle of a conspiracy that said he was mixed up in some downright awful things.
At this year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, Jelly sang Ozzy Osborne’s “Mama I’m Coming Home”, and while he received some criticism for the performance, it was a pre-event picture that really stirred the pot.
Jelly Roll lined up for a picture with Maynard James Kennan, RHCP drummer Chad Smith, Wolfgang Van Halen, and Jack Black, and it’s that last name where the trouble lies.
You may remember after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, Black’s Tenacious D band member Kyle Gass said he wished the shooter wouldn’t have missed, which of course drew a ton of backlash. Their tour was cancelled and Black apologized, but the damage was done for a sizable portion of the country.
Well, it wasn’t just that bad comment that had people upset with Jelly for hanging out with Jack Black.
There’s a conspiracy about the elites of our society that I wasn’t fully aware of until this came up. They claim a celebrity wearing red shoes in public is signaling that they are a member of a very secretive group of pedophiles that kidnap, rape, and traffic children, sometimes after harvesting their adrenochrome to inject themselves with to stay young. Is it the Illuminati, Knights Templar, Freemasons, the New World Order, something else? We don’t exactly know but there’s some people that believe in this more than it seems they believe in anything else.
As you may have noticed, Jack Black was wearing red shoes in the picture with Jelly Roll, leading to a number of comments like the ones below, some even saying that this means Jelly was involved in the awful stuff himself.
Red shoes. IYKYK https://t.co/23oHXVeXxO
— my name is ethan (@Weasel_Finder) October 22, 2024
Jack black + Red shoe symbolism = 👀😳 https://t.co/Jemdo7swwk
— Shannon Crawford (@shae33172) October 21, 2024
Due to all of this backlash, Jelly Roll reached his breaking point and said he was quitting Twitter/X for good.
This is for sure the most toxic negative app to exist ever — PERIOD. lol. This place is different man, I always heard it was the Wild West on here but man it’s insane . It’s a safe place for everyone to say mean shit to each other with no consequences. I’m out lol
— Jelly Roll (@JellyRoll615) October 20, 2024
That hiatus didn’t last for long and Jelly (or his team) has posted a few promotional things since, but today he went on the Pat McAfee Show and got a chance to address these rumors head on.
He and Pat were talking about how they both went from a smaller, regional following to a national audience in a short amount of time and how that quick transition put them in front of a ton of new people who had no idea who they were. When some of those new people saw a clip or a Tweet out of context, they got the wrong idea and start firing off their opinions without really understanding who they were talking about.
Talking about some Tweets he sent out about “exposing” the music industry, Jelly said:
“The first Tweet I said “I’ve seen some slimy stuff in the music industry this week. Don’t worry, I’ll expose it later” … In hindsight the word “expose” was maybe a little dramatic, right? But the word “slimy” wasn’t. And the way people responded to the comments was like I said Satanic.
Like I started getting drawn into weird stuff that like made me feel weird. Cause you know I’m a man of faith. I was like “Y’all really don’t know me if you think I would even..” Satan runs from the name I say. You know that’s all Imma say, I say one name and Satan scatters, you know what I mean?
I don’t worry ’bout nobody touching my butt or no Illuminati.”
He then went on to talk about his short-lived break from Twitter and how he realizes looking back that he should have handled it differently:
“Then I doubled-down like a real f***ng dumbass and I go “Well you know what I’m getting off Twitter, X y’all are mean to me.” That was so not the approach…
Yeah, I’m getting back [on Twitter], you know my thing about phones are is I go six months without a phone anyways, I’m only on a phone during tour cycle. As soon as I go home, I’ll throw this thing in the river and I’ll be phoneless for like four, five months and I’ll start fresh again, it’s like my routine.”
So if you happened to meet Jelly Roll a few years back and he’s not answering your calls, looks like it’s cause that phone is at the bottom of the Cumberland…
I’m sure there’s going to be people saying “Oh course he’ll say he’s not involved! No one says they’re a member!” and sure, I guess you have a point there. But are we really going to say Jelly Roll is part of an elite, Satanic society because he took a picture with a bunch of music legends, one of which happened to be wearing red shoes? That seems a bit much for me. Especially given the fact that the message of his music, his very successful music reaching millions and millions of people, stands in direct opposition to that. C’mon…
Didn’t expect the Pat McAfee Show to be where this issue may find its resolution, but hey, you never know what’s going to happen in the Thunderdome…
You always persevere @JellyRoll615 #PMSLive pic.twitter.com/YRyCtoh6QD
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) November 7, 2024
